This archive of published media articles about wildlife crime in Namibia aims to:
Public access to information is a vital component of ensuring community engagement in prevalent issues. Wildlife crime is one of the pressing environmental issues of our time.
Wildlife crime investigations are generally covert operations requiring utmost confidentiality to succeed. Investigations and prosecutions in complex cases may take months or even years to complete. For this reason, the information that can be released to the public without compromising cases is often limited. Nonetheless, the Namibian government strives to share as much information as possible with the public.
The Namibian media has welcomed this approach and regularly publishes statistics and feature articles on wildlife crime. These are entered into the database at regular intervals, creating a comprehensive archive of wildlife crime reporting in Namibia.
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The Ministry of Environment, Forestry, and Tourism is currently conducting an assessment to determine the extent of rhino poaching. In light of the recent poaching incidents in the park, the ministry has also requested an urgent high-level meeting with the security cluster. To date, a total of 28 rhinos have been poached in Namibia. Out of these, 19 were poached in the Etosha National Park, while the remaining 10 were discovered during dehorning operations throughout the month of March.
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NAM_2024_04_MEFT calls urgent meeting as 28 rhinos lost to poaching_NBC.pdf | 110.48 KB |
Zambezi Region's law enforcement and security forces are making significant strides against wildlife crime. Today, seven individuals from Zambia were apprehended in the Kapani area with 18 tusks, along with the discovery of a .375 caliber firearm in their possession. These tusks, believed to be sourced from poached elephants in Botswana, mark the latest incident in a series of arrests within the past three weeks. The total number of intercepted elephant tusks in this region over the last three consecutive weeks now stands at 59.
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NAM_2023_12_Security cluster in Zambezi crackdown on wildlife crime_NBC.pdf | 219.7 KB |
Police in the Zambezi Region apprehended a 37-year-old man found in possession of 24 elephant tusks during a joint operation with the Ministry of Environment and Tourism last night. The tusks are alleged to have come from Botswana, where the elephants were poached, and entered Namibia through the Batubaja Area in Linyanti Constituency. All 24 tusks were found loaded into a vehicle with an expired disc licence driven by a suspect who was allegedly called to provide transport after the car in which they were transported initially ran out of fuel.
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NAM_2023_11_Zambezi police investigate poaching of elephants_NBC.pdf | 133.71 KB |
The Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism intercepted a truck full of unprocessed timber last weekend in Windhoek, which was intended for export to South Africa. 1500 planks on the truck were confiscated and the transport permit was temporarily suspended pending further investigations to establish where the timber came from and if it was legally acquired. The Ministry introduced a moratorium on timber harvesting, transportation, marketing, and exporting in 2018.
Poachers have since January killed 106 rhinos in the South African KwaZulu-Natal province, surpassing numbers for the whole of 2021, claims a poaching report partially released last week.
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SA_2022_05_Rhino Poaching on the Rise in South Africa_OCCRP.pdf | 564.83 KB |
A local game breeder has earlier today been charged with the illegal possession and the selling of rhino horns after a combined intelligence operation involving several law enforcement units.
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SA_2021_07_Game breeder arrested for possession_trade in rhino horns_Review.pdf | 1.83 MB |
The National Prosecuting Authority has welcomed the sentences handed to two Mozambique nationals found guilty for poaching related offences by the Malamulele Regional Court. Enock Sibanda(31) and Eckson Shirinda (28) were arrested by Kruger National Park rangers on 14 November 2018 and were each sentenced to eight year’s imprisonment, said Mashudu Malabi-Dzhangi, the Regional Spokesperson of the Directorate of Public Prosecutions (DPP) in Limpopo.
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SA_2021-05_Kruger Park elephant poachers jailed by Limpopo court_Review.pdf | 2.2 MB |
Three black rhinos were found killed in separate incidents in the Lephalale and Gravelotte policing areas. In the first incident, a rhino was found shot and killed at a local game reserve in the Waterberg district on Friday, 22 January.
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SA_2021_01_ 3 rhinos killed in two separate incidents in Lephalale Gravelotte-Review.pdf | 1.45 MB |
The police on Friday arrested three suspects for possession of elephant tusks worth over R100 000. The suspects were arrested at a local mall during an undercover operation which was conducted by the police together with the Endangered Species Unit in Limpopo, K9 unit, Crime Intelligence, LEDET and KNP ECI .
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SA_2021-01_ Undercover cops arrest trio for possession of elephant tusks_Review.pdf | 511.14 KB |
The trio were arrested following a R50 000 transaction for parts of lions they killed on a private game reserve outside Lephalale.
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SA_2020-12_3 men sentenced in Mokopane for selling lion parts_Review.pdf | 1.17 MB |